D-Day - XVIII

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It had been explained countless times, through briefings and the platoon's CO, but it still seemed insane. Invading via frontal assault was madness, but it was the only option, and of the thirty-plus men who now crowded in the landing craft only a single one of them didn't expect to die. Everyone else waited as the waves rocked the boat, the stench of saltwater and moisture of the mist confounding the already crowded nature of their transport, and though not many could see beyond the hull, they could already hear the gunfire. Bullets flew overhead, explosions echoed across the sea, and there was so much screaming. More than a few began to pray, but no one so much as whimpered or complained. Whether or not they truly understood what they were doing was irrelevant. It was orders, simple as that, and before they boarded a few men had even joked that they hoped to at least take a few of the Fritz with them.

One man didn't hope, though. He knew he would survive. It didn't matter at all, orders or not. To him it was just an excuse. He only mused on the unique ways the war kept coming up with to kill men. This was a new kind of hell he hadn't quite expected, but above it all he only really bemoaned the slight seasickness.

Then the boat stopped. It hit something, or something hit it. The gunfire and explosions were so intense he could hardly tell, but as the landing ramp failed to open the men began to panic. Water was making its way in through the front, and it was clear they hadn't even reached the beach. Something went wrong, but no one could tell what. Instead the men shouted, ordered the ramp to be kicked down. The plywood hull would provide no cover, and the longer they sat still the longer they were sitting ducks.

Bullets ripped through the wood, shredding the men up front. Screams and panic erupted as the man wasted no time in crawling over his dead comrades. Someone had to open the ramp if they had any hope of making it to shore. He shoulder-checked it, smashing the ramp open even as more bullets flew. The men poured out, not even able to drag their wounded as they fell into neck-deep water. Their landing boat had struck another, but the situation was partly a blessing, as it meant the enemy could no longer see the men who disappeared beneath the waves. On the other hand the water immediately soaked the soldiers' gear, and many couldn't wade past the bodies and debris even as bullets aimlessly peppered the water around them. One man managed to keep himself oriented, but the frenzy in front of him was too much even for him. The smell of blood and gunpowder was overwhelming, the sounds a cacophony that left him directionless. Even after all his battles, all his time fighting and killing, this was something else. It was hell unlike the ones he knew, and even once he pulled himself out of the water it didn't end. The beach offered hardly any cover from artillery or snipers, and the vehicle-dissuading "hedgehogs" were hardly thick enough for one man to crouch behind. The bodies were everywhere, men dead or dying in the water behind him, torn apart on the sands ahead.

The man had hardly thought of these soldiers as people, but even after everything he'd seen he still felt it hard to breathe. Impossible, even. He hadn't breathed since he got out of the sea, his chest tightening as the water filled his lungs. Even as he tried to heave it wouldn't come out. The horror around him closed in as he doubled-over in the sand, but it wasn't stopping. He looked back to the sea as the water crept towards him, but it wasn't water. It was blood, filling with each soldier that died, filling the ocean itself until it rose to suck him back in. It grabbed his ankles and he struggled, fighting in vain. Like an animal in a trap, the hellish memory became a nightmare as it threatened to consume him even as his chest pounded. He felt his lungs collapsing as the blood ocean swallowed him whole, the distant screaming of his allies replaced with the sound of another voice. A woman's voice, a woman he knew, and the pounding in his chest grew more vivid, more real. He felt the last of the water expelled from his lungs, felt someone striking him over and over, and instinct took over.

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